Rob Frye and Bruce Acox take advantage of the evening bite for the Pawtuckaway Night Tourny

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The Team Bubba trail went to Pawtuckaway Lake in Nottingham, NH for their annual night tournament for the 2007 season on Saturday, July 21st. The Bubba night tournaments are scheduled to start at 7:00 PM with a 12 hour duration until the scheduled weigh-in time at 7:00 AM. Night tournaments can be very fun and productive with multiple time frames for a productive bite including the evening bite, the night-time bite and the early morning bite that you don't see during a conventional 7AM to 3 PM tournament. Mother Nature once again has given us a beautiful forecast for this night. The humidity was low and no chance of any precipitation. The temps were going to plummet to a much colder night than normal.

With 32 teams the pay-outs were set to pay off the First through Fourth place with the First Loser's Pool to be awarded to Fifth place. The Team Bubba trail pays out First place then a spot for every 6 boats/paid entrees. At the pre-tournament meeting this was informed to all the anglers as well as the rest of the necessary rules after a slow start due to the challenging parking logistics we finally took off at 7:15'ish.

Taking First place was the Team of Frye and Acox. This would be their 2nd Team Bubba win for 2007. Thanks to a little pre-fishing from Bruce this paid off for us. During his pre-fishing Bruce had caught two 4 lb bass on the way back to the ramp in a small cut along the bank. We started right away in the cut and within a few minutes Bruce had the first keeper caught on a Senko in the boat that was just over a pound. Within a couple more minutes I hooked into a 4 pounder which dug like crazy into the plentiful Pawtuckaway vegetation. The small cut was very productive so after making the initial pass we decided to turn around a try it again. On the second pass I changed baits to a weightless black/blue spider grub and was rewarded by hooking into another 4 pounder. Was this the same two 4 lb'rs that Bruce caught during pre-fishing? Who knows but they were in the live-well to make a very exciting start for our night. We continued along the shoreline with out any more bites after an hour and decided to move to a second spot. Within a few minutes of the move we hooked into 4 more fish caught on a mix of Senkos and spidergrubs including a 5.99 lb largemouth that Bruce managed to catch, drag out of the wood and through the weeds and into the boat on 8 pound test P-Line mono. Most of these fish were very tight to the plentiful targets that we were flipping and pitching to. It was 9:30 just before it the last rays of the sun were to disappear to total darkness of the night. That's when I made one of those casts out into the middle of "nothing-ness" just to get a loop out of my line that had buried itself deep into my baitcasting spool. As I started my retrieve I felt my line get heavy. I felt a tug and set the hook and managed to pull in another largie that was just under 4 lbs. That was a great feeling that any tournament angler would enjoy, to pull in four big fish including another kicker to complete a limit.

Pawtuckaway had treated us right so far but it also gave us a tremendous lull. After the 9:30 limit-fish we caught in Fundy we left and to endure the agony of not getting another keeper in the boat till 2 AM. We had just fished the Saturday WHEB tournament the day of the night tournament so we were immensely exhausted. At Midnight I checked our fish and they were all swimming fine in the live-well then chose to take a 2 hour nap while Bruce fished in Neal's Cove. I woke up at 2:00 AM to Bruce hooking into a keeper on his buzzbait. This keeper was going to cull out one of our smaller fish. AFter he landed it we opened up the livewell to cull out and we were both horrified to see the water level had dropped in the livewell. Panic set in as we saw 8 belly-up fish in the live-well and we started doing everything we could to revive the fish, if possible. We turned on the livewell pumps to manual fill and manual re-circulate and added ice from our cooler. We managed to revive all but 3 fish. Unfortunately, they were the 3 biggest. They were already too far gone and there was nothing we could do. After the tournament I realized that the drain plug was not set properly which probably caused the water level to drop.

After trying to deal with that ordeal we continued to fish with Bruce taking his turn to a nap. I managed to catch 3 more keepers on a buzzbait while Bruce took his nap. One of those fish included a 3.31 lb smallmouth caught around 4 AM. After catching the fat smallie I was culling out what I was assuming was our smallest fish. I then realized that I had grabbed the wrong culling rope and through back our next-to-smallest fish back into the lake. We still had one rat just over a pound. This is just another mistake made that occurs so frequently during the exhaustion of a long night tournament. I had finally redeemed myself of that mistake about 20 minutes before the end of the tournament by catching another largie around 2 lbs to cull out that fish that I inadvertently let stay in the live-well.

We ended up catching about 18 keepers that night between Fundy and Neal's Cove and were able to weigh in 28.31 lbs but were penalized a half a pound for each dead fish. After the 1.50 lb deduction we still managed to take First Place with 26.81 lbs and the tournament's Lunker Smallmouth with that fat smallie that weighed in at 3.31 lbs. We would have had the "Triple Crown" if our 5.99 lb largie survived but due to the rules of "Lunkers Must be Alive" in Bubba Bassin we had to render the Lunker Largemouth award to a nice 5.92 lb largie caught by the team of Steve Graham and Matt Dupree. Steve caught the big fish in Fundy on a Rapala jerk bait in the AM.

With this win it also earned me another $1000 bonus from the Skeeter Real Money program. Thank you again to Skeeter Boats/Yamaha, Mark Burgess and especially to our faithful Skeeter Boats dealer, Irwin Marine for submitting the Bubba Bassin trail tournaments into the Skeeter Real Money program. It’s a terrific incentive for Skeeter/Yamaha owners who especially fish any of the Bubba Bassin tournaments.

Second place went to the Team of Dave Morin and Frank Walters. This was Dave and Frank's first time in a Team Bubba event. We have always seen Dave and Frank fishing together in a Bubba Club tournament but this was the first time we've seen them fish as a team. They too had a productive night catching them on multiple baits including a lot of them caught on a Senko in the Fundy area. They brought in a nice average of 8 largies weighing in at 21.69 lbs with their biggest at 3.98 lbs. It was a joy seeing the both of them out there having a great time since Bruce and I fished in the same areas that they fished.

The Team of Richard Thorn and Barry White took Third Place with 8 largies weighing in at 19.63 lbs. I was not able to get the full info from them before they left so hopefully they will share that with us so I can plug it into here.

Whenever there is a night tournament you can guarantee to see one of the Hamels. The last pay-out spot went to the father/son team of Gerry Hamel and Marc Hamel, respectfully. They had a nice sack of 5 largies and 3 smallmouth. They had a kicker largie of 5.24 lbs as well as a nice 2.19 smallmouth. Their total weight ended up at 19.28 lbs. Gerry and Marc had caught about 20 keepers and landed their full 8 fish limit by midnight. According to Gerry, unfortunately they were all 12 inch keepers in the livewell at midnight. They threw everything except the kitchen sink but said everything they used was productive and caught fish. They managed to do most of their culling on the South end of the lake near the bigger damn, of which there is another one in Fundy. Congrats to the Hamels and we look forward to seeing them again at the next tournament.

Finding theirselves slipping out of the Team Bubba First place standings was the team of Jim Peake and Chris Jean. Though only slipping by a narrow margin to the Team of Frye/Acox they still had a very productive night on Pawtuckaway. They threw a lot of Junebug Senkos and managed to catch about 15 keepers but still found the bite slow. They did not have their limit until 2 AM. They started over by the dam in Fundy, which is a very well known hot spot on the lake. They only caught a couple of small fish on their initial visit but on a return visit later that night they caught their biggest over 3 lbs. They brought in 6 largies and 2 smallies to the scales that totaled at 18.53 lbs. They had the Lunker Smallmouth award during most of the weigh-in with a 2.30 lb smallie until getting bumped, but instead found themselves taking home the First Losers Pool of $220.

Congrats to all who completed and endured the Night Tournament. The next Team Bubba Trail Open tournament is schedule for August 12th on Lake Ossipee which is sponsored by Quinn's Trading Post. Be sure to visit Bubba Bassin website's homepage and our bulletin board for more details on this great sponsor and supporter of Bubba Bassin.

Quit Wishin, Go Fishing!!!